Sanity Is Relative
by LuxaLovesLawnmowers
Summary: Anko may be scarred, but she's got nothing on Ibiki, who's lost everything...except her. Not that the big idiot knows it yet, of course. It's up to Anko to let him know.


Disclaimer- I don't own Naruto.

I wrote this a while back and wasn't sure if the ending was good enough to post...but I figured I would anyway. I just like writing IbiAnko. Enjoy! :)

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Anko sidled into the room, putting her best tippy-toed sneaky act on. Humming the soundtrack to a spy movie in her mind, she crept closer and closer...

"Anko, you don't actually think you're fooling anyone, do you?"

She stopped brain-humming and pouted. Her target, Ibiki Morino, was sitting in a large plush armchair, calmly reading a book.

"I suppose you were asked to check up on me?" asked Ibiki politely, his tone betraying that he knew the answer.

"Yeah. Something about you being depressed and unhappy and possibly homicidal, but they should've worried about that _before_ they let you back on the job, right?" replied Anko, sinking into an armchair across from Ibiki. For a supposed psychopath, Ibiki's house was very well-furnished.

She glanced at the end-table next to her and saw, to her immense surprise, a wedding ring that could only have belonged to a man. She quickly looked away, but Ibiki hadn't become head of T&I for nothing.

"You can ask," he said, his tone amused. He shut his book softly, putting it aside. "I won't bite."

Anko picked it up and slid it onto her middle finger, where it hung loosely around her bony fingers. It was built for a large man, someone with a lot of muscle and large, strong hands.

"You don't wear it."

"I don't need to anymore."

"What happened? Did she die?"

"She divorced me."

Anko's eyes widened. "Why?"

"I guess she couldn't stand to see me the way I am now," shrugged Ibiki. "I'm fine with it. Obviously I hadn't married the right woman if she wouldn't stay with me right when I really needed her."

"That's pretty rotten."

Ibiki raised an eyebrow. "You do realize you're talking about my ex-wife, right?"

"You just said she left you, didn't she?" pouted Anko.

"I didn't say I blamed her. I'm a hard man to live with." chuckled Ibiki.

Anko stuck out her tongue. "You don't seem that difficult. Everyone thinks you're scary, but you're calm enough in person. And I bet you could clear a crowd in no time."

"I have been known to do that."

She let the ring fall into her hand and threw it to Ibiki to catch, which he did deftly, placing it in a drawer in the end-table closest to him. She wandered into his kitchen, and, doing what she did best, rummaged through his cabinets. Most of the cabinets had normal things like dishes and food, but the last cabinet had a ridiculous amount of prescription drugs. Succumbing to her curiosity, she examined the labels on the bottles. Most of them were for pain and scar tissue reduction, and a couple of them were for swelling and muscle damage. Last of all, she found a few anti-psychotics at the back of the shelf.

"Don't you know it's rude to go through someon else's things?" growled Ibiki. He sounded almost embarrassed, and he snatched the bottles she was holding away from her.

"Ibiki, I was just-"

"Going to tell all your friends that Morino's wife divorced him because he went crazy?"he demanded angrily.

Anko felt incredibly guilty. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to invade on your privacy."

"You did, and your apology does nothing."

"I sleep with pantyhose on my head." blurted Anko.

Ibiki seemed taken aback. "What?"

"When I was five, Orochimaru told me that snakes liked to climb into little girls' ears and lay eggs, and the eggs would hatch and slither their way into their brains, and I believed him, and even now I can't get to sleep unless there's something covering my ears."

Ibiki raised an eyebrow. "That's quite a trait."

"Whatever psychosis you have is definately not as weird as that. There's no way."

Ibiki almost smiled. "I suppose you're right."

Anko grinned her lopsided grin in response. "See? I'm the crazy one. Everyone knows it."

Ibiki returned to the living room, and Anko trailed him.

"You're not the crazy one." he said quietly.

"What?"

"You just deal differently. It's better than me." When he sat in his chair she perched on the arm of it, watching him.

"And what do you do?"

This time he did smile. "I don't deal with it. I've grown so used to pain that it's ceased to affect me, and I've decided it's not worth it to drag it up so I can end up in the pysch ward of the hospital."

"You're one of the most balanced people I know." replied Anko honestly.

"That's very sad. You must not know very nice people."

Anko gave him a weird sort of crossed-eyed grin. "No, I don't. They're all big, scary ninja who run around killing people. Weird thing is, I do the same thing. Am I big and scary?"

"To a mouse, maybe."

She stuck up her nose at him. "I could scare you if I wanted."

He chuckled. "I'm sure."

She punched him in the arm with enough force to make a lesser man cry. He just laughed more.

"Anko, I think we've both had enough scares for a lifetime."

She couldn't help herself. Following her instincts and her love of doing unpredictable things, she kissed him on the lips. "Ready for one more, big guy?"

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Hope that wasn't rushed...what did you think? Review!


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